After the age of 40, presbyopia appears, the progressive loss of the eye"s ability to focus at certain distances that ends up requiring the use of glasses or contact lenses for reading, writing, and tasks that need to be seen well up close. In 2019, the team led by Susana Marcos announced the development of an intraocular lens capable of imitating the lens of the young eye and correcting presbyopia, and has now started the transfer to the market of these lenses.

This new intraocular lens will be on the market in 6 years to eliminate presbyopia with guarantees, restoring clear vision and improving the quality of life by eliminating the use of glasses.

The Lightlens initiative, promoted by Susana Marcos" team (National Research Award 2019) at the Daza Valdés Optics Institute of the CSIC, expects to obtain its first pre-commercial prototype in 2026.

With age, the lens of the eye becomes more rigid, losing its ability to focus on objects dynamically. The new lens is capable of replicating the ability of the young lens to dynamically accommodate vision to both distant and near objects.

"This new lens consists of two elements: a refractive one for the correction of distant vision attached to a deformable element, with haptics (peripheral lens endings) that capture the forces of the ciliary muscle, responsible for changing the shape of the lens to focus," explains Marcos.

The new technology, which is based on knowledge of the biomechanical and optical properties of the crystalline lens, brings together concepts of physics, mechanics, photochemistry and surgical techniques in ophthalmology. This advance seeks to compensate for the loss of the lens" accommodation capacity, which ends up affecting 100% of the population and in many cases begins at age 40. The approach developed includes the use of a novel technique of gluing with light to fix the lens.

"There are many intraocular lenses on the market that correct blurring, astigmatism and some optical aberrations, and even solve near vision problems, but none have the real-time dynamic accommodation of a young lens.

Although the company is not yet established, the team of scientists has received funding for the transfer and exploitation of the technology, which has been developed and patented between the CSIC and the Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard University (United States). Apart from having obtained Proof of Concept grants from the European Research Council (ERC) and Caixaimpulse from the "la Caixa" social work, Lightlens has recently received the second Healthstart award for entrepreneurship from the Madrid+D Foundation of the Community of Madrid.

"We are currently talking to various intraocular lens manufacturing companies as potential investors and strategic partners. The company will be founded as soon as we have secured ad hoc funding," said the CSIC researcher.

Within the group led by Marcos, companies have been created such as Plenoptika, which develops solutions for eye prescription in developing regions, or 2Eyesvision, which allows patients to see the result of a cataract operation before being operated on.


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